Billions of bags, in fact. According to the Mail, some 13 billion free-use shopping bags are handed out in Britain each year. Many of these end up not where they should be, in a recycling centre, but out there polluting the environment and taking a grim toll on creatures on land and in the sea.
In the marine world whales, dolphins, turtles, seabirds and other creatures have perished, their digestive systems or airways blocked up by plastic, or body movement critically impaired. Corals, too, die if smothered by plastic.
There are many kinds of plastic pollution that can cause damage, from large to surprisingly small fragments. But reducing the burden imposed by bags would make a good start in reducing casualties in the natural world.
The thrust of the Mail's Banish the Bags campaign is to force the Government and businesses to adopt measures that encourage adoption of multi-use bags that can be taken repeatedly to the shops by customers - and to charge for any new bags handed out at the point of purchase.
Arrangements now in operation in France and Ireland have been cited as proof that such a system is workable and would have the support of the public if it were to be introduced on a wide scale.
Some shops in Britain, mainly supermarkets, do already sell tough, square-bottomed multi-use bags - but customers continue to be provided with the alternative option of single-use plastic bags.
As a first step, M&S announced today that it is to charge 5p for every bag supplied to customers. The move follows trials of the scheme carried out in the South-west of England and in Northern Ireland. |
